Opium smoking - the lascar's room in 'Edwin Drood': 1872

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A person lit by a low light is lying smoking opium. Illustration on page 146, from Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Dore, 'London, a Pilgrimage', 1872. Limehouse and Pennyfields, where many Chinese seamen had settled, were the locations of a number of opium-smoking and gambling rooms. Charles Dickens sensationally describes a Docklands opium den in 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood'.